Cav's Place

I guess I am trying to add another post to this series, so quickly after the previous one. It’d be great if the need for non-personal posts will make me actually manage to write more of them, but we’ll see what happens. At this point, despite the fact that it actually will include five bands this time, this one doesn’t even change the number of bands not included in such posts, since last night I went through what had been posted on the Power of Female Fronted Metal group since I wrote that previous post and added four bands, and then checked again before starting to write it today and added one more. Should also note that the last band included in the post isn’t one of those added, since one of those added just had one song uploaded, so I couldn’t make the usual two picks, but while I normally just ignore songs from bands I had heard of before ever since the group became so active, for some reason last night I decided to update the links for one such band, so I added that as the fifth one now.

To start with the band added today, that’s Hamen. Since I wasn’t rushing nearly as much as last night, I actually listened to most of their one full album on their Deezer page and there may be better choices there, but since that site requires signing up and logging on in order to listen to full songs, I don’t link to songs posted there and will just go with the song that was posted on the group, My True Freedom, as first pick. As for the older song for the second pick, let’s say Winter. Still those lengthy instrumental bridges in the second part of songs that are so awfully common and keep bothering me, and the low production value, particularly notable on the older songs, hurts them, but they have something interesting as well.

Moving on to the bands added last night and going through them alphabetically, the first is Everfall and, with three videos posted and one of them being for a song in Spanish, my two picks were not a matter of choice. But that’s definitely not a problem, as both Revenge and Damned Eternity are good songs, I’d say the latter in particular. They may be better composed than performed and recorded, and could quite clearly use a more powerful voice, or perhaps a male voice in addition to the female one, but even so Everfall may well be the best actual new find in this post, at least at such a quick glance and based entirely on my subjective opinion and preferences, of course. They even managed to make those bridges somewhat interesting, which is an achievement in itself. And they’re also the first band from Bolivia to catch my attention so far.

Next would be Golden Jubilee, a name which hardly fits a metal band but which makes far more sense when you see that they apparently had many blues influences early on, and some things are still noticeable. Whether that’s good or bad depends on each person’s preferences, of course, but it clearly makes for songs that are generally softer and slower, and rely less on the instruments and sounds usually associated with metal. The self-titled song and Heal Me may be the worst examples of those differences out of the songs I listened to from them, and the latter also features two other artists, but I am choosing them as my picks just because they sound much better to me. The production and even the voices themselves also seem better, which is odd, especially in case of the production, since the others are from the same album. But when you have a song with the same name as the band and another that features other artists, I guess it’s only normal to put more effort, and possibly also resources, into them.

Hypersonic comes next, and no, I have no idea what the name has to do with the Christian theme I see in their songs. Raising my eyebrows at those lyrics to say the least, and some sounds seem to belong more in electronic songs, or something of that sort, plus that those instrumental bridges are here as well and they’re not doing anything interesting with them either, but they do have a good, solid sound overall, and a powerful voice. Prayer in the Dark is clearly the best example of that out of the songs I listened to. I’ll go with a much older song as my second pick though, Wings of Life, to show where they started from, even if that’s a somewhat different song, more of a ballad, and also the only one from their first EP that apparently wasn’t also on their first full album. Not sure why that was, but to me it sounds clearly better than the other three on that EP.

As for the fifth band, the one I had heard of before, that’s Dialith and they’re the reason why I said above that Everfall may well be the best actual new find in this post and not simply the best band in this post. They have everything on Bandcamp, so you can go there if you’re interested, but I’ll take the easy way for the picks for this post, sticking to their YouTube channel and therefore, at this point, to The Sound of Your Voice and Libra. Despite having just released their first full album in August, what I’m hearing is solid, powerful, confident, well produced, professional… And the fact that the theme has to do with the sixth mass extinction, currently being caused by humans, is definitely also a plus. You may say that the overall sound is rather typical, but there are some exceptions there as well and, either way, what’s more important is the quality, and Dialith are clearly among those who not only do things well, but they do them well pretty much from the beginning too, which is even rarer.

I’ll just make a quick addition to this series, mainly to avoid needing to use another one of those old book reviews to get myself a “slot” for tonight’s post. Just three bands in this one, and only one of them an actual recent find, but that’s what I was left with after ending up dismissing the other one, also from Japan, that was even more recent and which made me think of looking through the Asian bands I knew of. Will likely return to that one later, since at the moment the issue is that there are few songs in English and the accent on the older ones is so bad I can hardly tell they are in English. But, either way, after dismissing that one and another one from Singapore which split up a few years ago and had bad vocals anyway, I was only left with two “proper” Asian bands, not including those from Israel or the exact locations of those from Russia, and one of them is an old find. So I then went back to my initial idea, of looking for African bands, but other than Analgesia, which was awesome and I already included in such a post, I only had two of those to begin with, and pretty much only added one back when I stumbled into it because it was so unusual to see such a band from that region, so I don’t care to put it in such a post. But, even though the other African band is also an old find, and may also no longer be active at this point, at least that left me with three bands, which will have to do.

That Japanese band I didn’t discard is Lovebites, and while you definitely notice the accent in the vocals, otherwise they really don’t sound like something you’d expect from a band from there, and even less so like an all-female one. Now I didn’t listen to many of the songs, so I’ll go straight with Rising as first pick, being the one video from their second full album, and with what I read was the ballad from the first one, Edge of the World, but if you’re interested you can currently find just about everything on YouTube. I’ll probably go through at least a few more myself after posting this, and hope I won’t end up regretting including them in such a post once I do, but at this point I don’t think there’s a significant risk of that.

The second Asian band is Blodwen, and they’ve been around for much longer, and I’ve known of them for much longer, but for some reason I remembered them as a band I didn’t care to add in such a post. Based on the few more recent songs I listened to now, I really wonder why, but I first heard of them quite a number of years ago and things might have been different then, and I see that even they don’t have the first full album uploaded on Bandcamp, where they have just about everything released later. Don’t see their most recent release there yet though, Darkest Day Blackest Night, out just this month, so I’ll use that as first pick, to add something particularly recent. And for the second pick I guess I’ll go with Lovelorn, which was also released as a free single, but is in fact from their second full album.

As for the third band, that’s Crimson Chrysalis and it’s from South Africa. Judging from the lack of posts for the past couple of years and the fact that the site vanished, they seem to no longer be active, and they also don’t have a Metal Archives entry, but then again, they list themselves as symphonic rock, not metal. They are listed on Spirit of Metal though, so I’ll use the links from there for the albums. All of the second one is actually available on SoundCloud, but I just went straight with the first video they have for it, Sacred Vow. As for a pick from the first album, let’s say Angels and Demons, to be somewhat different. May end up listening to that second album after posting this, since it’s there, but see no reason to believe I may regret adding them in such a post, at least if you don’t count the fact that they may no longer be active.

We’re in the second half of the year and I hadn’t added anything in this series, so it’s about time. Had been meaning to for a while, especially since I need non-personal posts, plus that the Power of Female Fronted Metal group became much more active recently and I therefore stumble into new bands more often than I had been in a while, but kept putting it off. In fact, I was about to give up on the thought today as well, but in the end I set my mind to it, at first thinking I’ll stop after just three entries if I’ll have to. Got to five after all, but it’s rushed and I tended to mostly, with one exception, just listen to what was posted officially on YouTube, not including any live recordings, making my usual two picks from that instead of out of everything that could be found.

I’ll start with Enemy Inside, which doesn’t even have an entry on Metal Archives yet but which I know I listened to before, YouTube listing their previous videos as watched as well. I think it was the heavy sound and that trace of something oriental in two of them, quite clearly coupled with me rushing or being in a bad state of mind at the time, that put me off, making me dismiss them until today, when I happened to listen to Phoenix, which therefore needs to be my first pick. If I eliminate those two and the one that’s a live video, and since I didn’t listen to the rest, the second needs to be Oblivion, but I may actually prefer that one. And those I had previously dismissed did also catch my attention to some extent now that I listened to them again, and if you read the descriptions you’ll see that they actually have a point to make too, with all their songs.

It’s a somewhat similar story for Nightqueen, which has a power metal sound that seems brought from as far back as the ’80s and which I was aware of but had dismissed until today, when I happened to listen to Wall of Sorrow. Now this genre isn’t what I’m usually looking for, but their current vocalist makes all the difference, truly having what it takes for it. You’ll likely notice the difference if you compare with an earlier song, like Lady Fantasy, which isn’t bad but simply lacks this sort of voice, in my opinion at least.

Moving on, Tigersclaw is an actual recent find, having first heard of them less than a month ago, and I actually recall being quite blown away by Force of Destiny at the time. Listening to it again now, I’m not that impressed anymore, but like the voice well enough. They could do with better recording, which may be a matter of being able to afford it, and a more complex sound, but they seem to lack the members for that, so it’s nice enough for a band this size. For an earlier song, I’ll go with Eternity, which may actually sound better.

Another band I only heard of recently, Lureaway, is the one exception to what I mentioned above, only listening to official videos posted on YouTube. In fact, they seem to me to pick what to post there, or even make a video for, quite poorly, so the links will be from Bandcamp as well, the first pick being Aflame. As for the second, though there may be another that’d get closer to following my rule of having the two picks from different albums if possible, being the only one of the four older songs listed as having been re-recorded for the recent full album, I’ll nevertheless go with In Bed with the Beast as my second pick. I think these two songs show what they can do, and why I like how they sound the best out of the five bands included in this post.

As for the fifth band, that’s Sin7sinS and it seems that they recently returned after a few years, Prayer for Night Eternal being their first song after the hiatus and catching my attention when I heard it. From what I listened to out of their older songs, I guess I wouldn’t have exactly been interested, and it is in fact quite likely that I heard of them back then and dismissed them, but there are a few exceptions, the most obvious out of what I listened to again now being Bittersweet Dreams.

As I already mentioned, this was a rushed post, not doing justice to the bands, but at least I managed to write it, and post it before midnight as well, to at least have a chance to avoid another Sunday update, though I somehow doubt I will. Either way, even these few words about each are better than nothing, though it hardly makes a dent in the number of bands I really should post at least this much about. It doesn’t mean all that much even for those that caught my attention after being posted on that group I mentioned over the past few months, since the activity picked up as it did. But if I could write one, I hope I’ll manage more, sooner or later. As usual, definitely mean to write at least one more by the end of the year, and hope for two more, so let’s see how that will work out.

When I wrote the previous post in this series, I definitely didn’t think I’ll add another by the end of the year and get to those planned 15 bands included this year, but here I am, adding it now. Whether anyone reading will consider this post as including four bands or just two, it’ll still be enough, since I just need two to get to 15. It’ll be a quick post though, just throwing it here, but this is still a whole lot better than not writing it at all and just throwing band names on that list, only to forget about them soon after.

The first band is Orion’s Reign, which I had apparently first stumbled upon long ago, but this year they released their second album, ten years after their first full one. But I actually stumbled upon them again now due to what seems to be their tradition of releasing metal covers of Christmas songs every year, providing a playlist with them on their YouTube channel. Now it’s very odd for me to listen to something like that, but if they would sound like their cover of Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, I might, because I found myself quite stuck on that after accidentally stumbling upon it. Other than that, could also link to Nostos, but that also features Minniva, who seems to work with them a fair bit but isn’t actually a band member, so I really should link to one of their actual songs too, and for that I’ll go with Ride to War.

And then there are three projects led by the same guy, or the same two brothers at least, though one sure seems keen to put his name on them, the one I actually stumbled upon being called Marius Danielsen’s Legend of Valley Doom, not that I found anything else called “Legend of Valley Doom” to require something like this, so I’ll just call it like that. The second is Eunomia, which seems to share the story but perhaps have a more typical power metal sound, while Legend of Valley Doom seems to go for a more “epic” sound. The third, Darkest Sins, sounds rather different, and I’m not keen on that sound, but just adding it here for good measure.
To get Darkest Sins out of the way, I see two official videos posted, so I’ll just link to those, Domineer and Fear. Eunomia, on the other hand, seems to only have one official video, for Last Stand, but I’ll go with Eternity as the second pick, out of the few others I could find on a quick search, though this upload may of course vanish. As for Legend of Valley Doom, what’s released under that name is available on the guy’s Bandcamp, so you can pick what you prefer. Since I didn’t listen to what’s there now though, I’ll just select from his YouTube channel, Tower of Knowledge and Visions of the Night. What I did here doesn’t fit the rule I try to follow when selecting songs to link to, but I did say that this was a quick post.

I included eight bands in the previous post in this series, so was thinking I had a real chance to get to a total of 15 this year even if I won’t manage three posts, but that’s not going to happen. In fact, considered just including four in this one, since I’m in a hurry and just had the first three in mind and the fourth caught my eye rather quickly after glancing through a few names on my list, since I’ve been listening to a couple of their songs a fair bit relatively recently, but hadn’t yet checked that previous post at the time, so spent some more time looking for something else and decided to just go with one with a potential connection with the fourth, even though neither should really be in these posts. If I’d have remembered having eight in that previous post, I’d have definitely stopped at four in this one, making for a total of 12, 13 bothering me a bit. But now that I selected it, might as well…

The most recent band I stumbled into is Silent Tales, which seems to have recently returned to activity after a long break, at least in terms of releases, since I see albums in 2003, 2006 and 2018, with this latest one also being posted on their YouTube channel, the only other actual song posted there being Raven Circle, from the same album. Other than that, there’s an instrumental posted in 2013 that doesn’t seem to be from any album and could find one more, from their first album, but that seems to be it, so no idea what their older stuff really sounded like. But this recent album isn’t bad at least, and you can just listen to all of it and pick what you like, if anything. Personally find at least Thought and the Memory, Eternal River and When the Star Falls to be quite good.

Next is Dead of Night, a band I had apparently first stumbled into quite a few years ago, ending up one of the hundreds thrown on the list and probably never listened to again, but a post reminded me of them recently and I found that they split up, so I’m not sure how right it is to include them here, but I will nevertheless. You can even download a number of their songs by following the link in a post made shortly after they split up, and I’m quite sure the original version of The Highwayman was the song that initially made me consider them interesting, and despite being one of their oldest this was also the one I saw posted again recently. Still, with those free downloads not including anything from their last album, I guess I should pick something to share from that one too, and after a quick glance through what’s readily available on their YouTube channel, guess I’ll go with For I Am Music. Quite a different sound though, and I care for it much less than I do about their earlier stuff, especially when it comes to the instrumental bits.

And the third band I originally had in mind for this post is Solborn, and you can just listen to their album, and at the time I’m writing this seven of the nine tracks are on their YouTube channel too. If the two bands listed above are the most recent I stumbled into that seemed in some way interesting and the older find that I was most recently reminded of, I can say that this is the most recent find that rather impressed me. The sound quality and mixing could be better, but most songs are good, though they may take a while to actually get going, and I’ll point that out by actually suggesting Beast of Oblivion, which includes growls, and say that I liked it overall in spite of that. Other than that, take your pick, but I guess my second one will be the one non-instrumental song that’s not yet on their YouTube channel, Pale Blue.

Next would be a, shall we say, middleweight, Beast in Black. One bad consequence of that is that they have their songs posted on Deezer, which requires logging on in order to listen, but at least they are somewhere. The band was apparently created by the guy kicked out of Battle Beast, who sure seems to have landed on his feet. Male-fronted bands are unusual in these posts of mine, and this isn’t even the sort of sound I’d be tempted to say I like even with male vocals, but found myself quite stuck on Blind and Frozen and Ghost in the Rain for a while. And that should be enough, but since they did just recently release a new song, which should be from their next album, I’ll link to Sweet True Lies as well, to have songs from different albums here.

And the fifth band will be The Dark Element, whose vocalist you may remember was in Nightwish. And now that I looked it up, I see that the band is actually made up of her and most of a supergroup called Cain’s Offering. Still say her voice doesn’t quite fit the genre, but for anyone interested, they do seem to have managed to get something interesting enough out of it. I’ll just pick from the official uploads, even though other songs may be better, so I’ll link to the two videos released at the moment, The Ghost and the Reaper and My Sweet Mystery. Then again, the lyric video for Someone You Used to Know also claims to be official, despite being on a different channel, and I already broke the previous rule of two songs, if at all possible from two different albums, more than once in this post, so I’ll add this too, because it’s a different sort of song, and I’d say it suits her better.